JERSEYANA

JERSEYANA; On the Road, Sign Language Can Be Hard to Understand

By ROBERT STRAUSS

Published: November 21, 1999

A first-time visitor to New Jersey is driving up from the south looking for the bright lights and tourist sights of the big cities: the State House in Trenton, the New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden, the Crossroads Theater in New Brunswick or the Newark Museum.

Crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge and starting up Interstate 295, the hapless driver looks for the first mileage sign. And soon, there it is: Paulsboro 16; Bellmawr 24; Ewing 72.

Not what was in mind. Was a president born in Bellmawr? Is there a stadium in Paulsboro? Does Ewing have a big art museum?

Not that there is anything wrong with these towns. Paulsboro, for instance, is home to a perennial high school wrestling powerhouse; the College of New Jersey campus is in Ewing. Yet chances are people on the road want to know how far it is to Camden or Trenton or Princeton or Jersey City, all just off I-295, or the New Jersey Turnpike, to which it connects. They wont get any help from this or many other mileage signs on the state's major roads.

It is all part of a sort of literal interpretation by the state Department of Transportation. The department had long been criticized for not having many mileage signs at all, so over the last several years, it has been placing more of them on state and federal roads. The problem is that the signs mainly mention only towns directly on the road.

In the case of the sign at the foot of I-295, Paulsboro is the first town of any size a driver comes to on the highway. Bellmawr is the town where I-295 connects with state Route 42, which leads to the Atlantic City Expressway. And Ewing, just north of Trenton, is where I-295 officially ends. Though there is no interruption in the road, it changes its designation at Ewing to Interstate 95.

''We're not trying to deceive anyone or to lead anyone away from the cities,'' said John Dourgarian, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. ''What we wanted to do is make sure everything corresponds to the official state map. If drivers have the state map, then these towns and these major intersections will be obvious.''

Of course, one might ask, if you had the official state map in hand, would mileage signs be needed in the first place? But a visitor might still want to know how far it is to the major cities or tourist sites.

A driver can forget about that, too, if coming into the state from Philadelphia. At the beginning of state Route 70 in Pennsauken, soon after crossing the Delaware River on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, there is a sign reading: Medford 12; Whiting 38; Brielle 58. So while a driver may want to know how far away mega-suburb Cherry Hill is along Route 70, or maybe the distance to some Shore points, he instead learns where Route 70 crosses Burlington County 541 (Medford), where it crosses County 539 (Whiting) and where it terminates (Brielle).

''Over the last five years, we've been trying to update and standardize our signs, especially on newer roads or where there are new intersections,'' Mr. Dourgarian said. ''It's not arbitrary and we've left some of the older signs where they are appropriate.''

In fact, when traveling east on Route 70, a driver will see some of those older signs, updating at appropriate intervals the distances not to Whiting and Medford, but to Camden and Philadelphia. But approaching Trenton on State Routes 129/29, an upgraded road with new intersections, a driver won't find how far she is from the capital, but will see a sign reading: Lambertville 17; Frenchtown 33.

These new signs could be material for a New Jersey geography lesson, or perhaps even bring a little tourist boom to some of these smaller towns. For instance, several mileage signs on southbound Interstate 295 give the mileage to Pennsville, a working-class town of about 12,000 and the terminus of I-295.

Pennsville's Web site (www.pennsville.org) touts the Church Landing Farmhouse Museum, a restored working farm from 1860, and restaurants that include Gus's Pizzeria on South Broadway and the Riverview Inn overlooking the Delaware.

''I haven't heard of a person coming in here yet because of the signs,'' said Lori Maahs, Pennsville's deputy clerk. ''But we do have a wonderful park here, Riverview Beach Park, where we have a marvelous party, the Septemberfest, the weekend after Labor Day. It's a real nice town and Im sure a tourist would love it.''

Photos: On Route 70, above, and I-295, the signs don't mention Trenton, Camden or Philadelphia, but much smaller towns. (Photographs by Laura Pedrick for The New York Times)